


Memento Mori

by blak_cat



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-14
Updated: 2015-01-14
Packaged: 2018-03-07 13:57:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3175450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blak_cat/pseuds/blak_cat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On Laura's birthday, she's reminded that her time with Carmilla isn't infinite even if the vampire is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Memento Mori

**Author's Note:**

> I finally broke and watched Carmilla. I got roped into writing this shortly after. It's hella long.

"Surprise!"

It was at that exact moment that the cherry-lime Slurpee went flying in tandem with a yelp from its owner as Laura opened the door to her room in a shower of pink and purple confetti. In front of her was a sea of smiles, or rather the very small lake that encompassed her friends. Perry and LaFontaine struck poses, Kirsch capped with what appeared to be three party hats gave a long puff on party horn that shot out and back in quickly. He held it between his smiling teeth while turning to an also be-hatted Danny who rolled her eyes.

Laura, recovered and now aware that the bag of bear spray that she totally had not been hunting for seconds ago was not in fact needed, scanned the room quickly and found the dark spot in the corner, splattered with a dash of color that looked, based on her face, like it was forced upon her head.

"You guys," Laura said, setting down her bag and stepping over the sloshy pile of green sinking into the carpet.

"I'll clean that up later," Perry offered, eying the puddle like a contagion.

"Oh, that's okay you've done enou—"

"I'll take care of it."

Right.

Laura smiled and stepped forward to hug her, and everyone else in succession. Landing last on Carmilla, who pulled herself into a standing like there were strings on her body pulled by ballerinas. In counter to her grace, Laura hopped over to her and through her arms around her middle. She felt an angular chin burying into the crown of her head followed by a pair of lips kissing her hair.

"Happy birthday, cupcake," Carmilla whispered.

"You guys didn't have to do this," Laura said, pulling back and turning to the circle behind her.

"Yeah we did," LaFontaine said. "By which I mean, we." She bounced her index finger back and forth between herself and Perry.

"I like to think I helped a little," Danny said. "The hats were my idea." She snapped the string on Kirsch's hat for emphasis and he let out a squeak he disguised as a grunt.

"Yes, everyone helped," Perry said, stepping forward. "Almost everyone."

Eyes focused behind Laura who turned back around to Carmilla. She shrugged.

"Parties aren't really my thing, considering I was murdered at one I try to actively avoid them," she said. "Besides, there are other ways to celebrate."

The shiver up Laura's spine told her Carmilla meant that exactly as it sounded and she felt her cheeks heat up fast under a sultry gaze.

"Anyway," LaFontaine drew out the vowels and stepped forward. "There are all sorts of processed foods with dozens of preservatives waiting to be eaten." Perry sighed. "And Perry's brownies."

Carmilla had allowed her bed to be turned into a makeshift table and it was still somehow the most well made Laura had ever seen it covered in a purple throw-away table cloth and plates of food. Kirsch dug in almost immediately, received a smack from Danny, complained that they'd been told to eat, and continued.

Laura grabbed one of Perry's brownies and took a seat next to Carmilla on her own bed. The girl was smiling but it was a painted on smile that stretched just a little too thin. Laura bumped her shoulder and offered the brownie. Carmilla let slip a real smile, only made obvious by her efforts to hide it. But then it was gone.

Laura felt her brows knit together on their own as she watched Carmilla take a small bite of the brownie corner. She weaved her arm through the elbow bend of Carmilla's own, and that at least earned a light sigh from her as she finally leaned into to Laura.

"How's it feel? 20?" Carmilla asked, wiping away stray crumbs along her lips with an elegant finger.

"No different than yesterday."

"I know that feeling."

They eventually sat back, Laura's head nuzzled perfectly into Carmilla's stomach, not feeling the rise and fall of breathing or hearing the familiar echo of a thump from above. She felt fingers playing in her hair as the others chatted around them.

"I'm just saying, I could definitely chug this faster than you," Kirsch said to Danny, holding up the liter bottle of soda.

"It's soda, chug that stuff fast enough and it'll end up coming right out your nose," LaFontaine said.

"No, I got this. We'll go on three."

Danny held up her cup.

"Okay, one, two, three, go."

Kirsch through back the bottle and Danny set her cup down, and scooted away to watch the show. Within ten seconds Kirsch was spitting soda everywhere and pinching his nose in a hiss. Laura and Danny burst out laughing.

"Right out your nose," LaFontaine said.

"Bro, not cool," Kirsch said, looking at Danny through one eye not squeezed shut.

Laura laughed and Danny offered him a cookie as an apology.

"Okay, before Broseph turns this into a rager and vomits up cookies all over Carmilla's bed…gifts," Lafontaine said. Perry hopped up in an excited squeak.

"Oh, you guys, you didn't have to," Laura said, sitting up and feeling the fingers detangle from her hair. "I know I've been saying that a lot today but, honestly, this is too much."

"Hell no you're not pulling that crap, it took me three days to find this wrapping paper, " LaFontaine said, handing her a wrapped box.

Laura had to admit, she got an absurd amount of giddy joy from tearing into presents. It was a mix of stress relief watching the TARDIS on the wrapping paper rip in two, and excitement as she slowly unearthed what ended up being a leather-bound journal with her initials.

"I know it's a little old fashioned since you've got that whole Paranormal Activity thing going on," Lafontaine motioned to the webcam. "But you need to at least look like your feverishly scribbling a big story."

"Which you will do," Perry jumped up, handing her a smaller, narrower box. "With this."

Laura opened it up to find a matching black pen, also initialed with L.H.

"Thank you guys," Laura said. "Honestly, this is amazing."

She got up and hugged them both. Next she received a replica Gryffindor cardigan from Danny and what turned out to be a pink letters tee shirt from Kirsch.

"Only bros can wear zeta, you're an honorary bro, little hottie," he said, offering out his fist for a bump, which Laura gave through good-natured rolling eyes.

"And last but not least, Carmilla has requested to give you her gift in private," LaFontaine said.

"Which sounds like a way to hide that someone went over the $30 limit," Perry mumbled to herself.

"Or that it's the PG-13 kind…" Danny followed up, a little less mumbled. Laura felt a shift behind her and wondered if Carmilla awoke from her melancholy fog to glare at her.

"So, we'll see you guys tonight. Birthday dinner, getting it from a real place instead of the caf. Six o'clock," LaFontaine said.

Laura nodded and everyone shuffled out, Kirsch with a collection of cookies in his arms. The door clicked shut and Laura didn't feel Carmilla relax. Instead she got up wordlessly and went to her closet. There were sounds of moving things skidding across the wood as she dug out a flat, green, leather box only slightly bigger than Laura's own hand.

"I was afraid this was going to seem self-indulgent," Carmilla said, handing the unwrapped box to Laura. "It still does, I think."

Laura opened it up to see a ring. The stone was red, a deep, dark red, and not cut into any modern prism or pattern. It was simply an oval, smoothed over and set slightly raised from the band. On the side were engravings of cherubs, one smiling, one mourning.

"Carm," Laura breathed out.

"It was mine," Carmilla said. "A long time ago. Angels don't really suit me anymore so…"

She felt Carmilla sigh next to her. She pulled the ring out of the case and let it lay flat on her palm. The inside had a worn down engraving, the jewelry maker signature and a date 1698. It would be too bulky to wear now on her hand, but she immediately got up and went to her dresser, digging out a jewelry box. She removed a small lighting bolt scar charm from a chain and strung the ring onto it instead.

"Help me out?" she said, turning her back to Carmilla.

She felt cold fingers take either side of the chain from her and brush the back of her neck as the latch closed together and the ring now sat against her chest. She turned expectantly to Carmilla who had eyes only for Laura's face.

"How does it look?" Laura said.

"Without a doubt, the most beautiful thing I have ever seen." Her gaze was nowhere near the necklace.

Laura swore the color of Carmilla's eyes darkened every time she looked at Laura like that, like she was a meal. But meal, they both knew, was the farthest thing from Carmilla's mind.

They met slowly in the middle, connecting in everyway possible. Chests flush, hands on hips, hands on jaws, hands cupping necks, lips meshing, very quickly tongues accepting invitations. Hands began to roam and feet began to move. A back was to the bed and black hair hung over a face like a curtain, mixing and weaving with the blonde. Hands started moving, sliding under the fabric of shirts.

They had never actually gone all the way through with it. Though Laura knew it was in Carmilla's nature to take what she wanted, the fangs that protracted in her mouth every time she was aroused was evidence of that, but in this Carmilla waited. She waited for signals or words that Laura wanted more. The toll of self-control was evident in the many times she'd come close to biting Laura.

Laura felt no fangs under the graze of her tongue, despite the continued exploration. After a moment more she pulled her head back into the pillow and Carmilla sat back, her knees tucked at either side of Laura's hips.

"What's wrong?" Carmilla said.

"I was going to ask you the same thing."

Laura used her elbows to prop herself up, nudging Carmilla off of her. She obeyed and gave Laura space to come to a sit, her back to the headboard. Carmilla leaned against the wall, Laura's legs sitting on the tent of Carmilla's bent knees. Laura noticed now, Carmilla's eyes were trained on the ring around her neck, regarding it like a mirror.

"I shouldn't have given you that," Carmilla said. "Just something else out of its time, clinging to you."

Laura felt a panic button get hit somewhere in her stomach and she leaned forward, catching Carmilla's attention, eyes now back on Laura's own. She wanted to pursue the mystery of Carmilla's melancholy on a day when she should be the first in line to beam and smile at Laura (if Carmilla was into beaming and smiling). But a part of her was afraid to chase this particular rabbit down its hole.

"What are you saying?" Laura asked.

"I don't know."

Carmilla got up again with that same grace and went to the window, staring through a crack in the curtains to the setting sun. Laura got up and followed her, her throat was suddenly dryer than it had ever been and constricting into a lump. Her eyes conspired with it to become glazy.

"You're not—you're not…breaking up with me?" Laura said, trying her best to sound calm. She was overreacting, she knew she was. But she had to ask, because it felt like a pulsing thousand pound brick on her chest and she was fairy certain she was going to forget how to breath if her suspicions were right.

Carmilla turned her head lazily over to Laura and took stock of her nearly present tears. Her face soften immediately like dried up earth suddenly brought to life again by rain. She stepped over, palms clung to Laura's face, and she pressed a long and chaste kiss to her.

"I'm too selfish for that," Carmilla whispered. "Even if I should."

Laura allowed herself to calm down, sending the back of her hand to violently wipe away the tears that had escaped when her eyes shut of their accord. Carmilla tucked a few tuffs of hair behind Laura's ear, gently.

"Why?" she said.

"You know why."

Carmilla shoved her hands into a fold across her chest and lazily paced back over to the bed, sitting down on the edge. Laura followed and occupied the space beside her, making sure knees, thighs, hips, and arms were all touching. Reminding Carmilla that she was there, that she wasn't easily ignored, and even one single lead would hook her.

Why? Laura knew why. But she didn't want to answer, if she corroborated Carmilla's thoughts then that made them real, it made the obstacle real, made the timeline real, it made their borrowed time real, it proved there was in fact a true and real difference between them.

"Enlighten me," Laura said.

Carmilla shot her a look that told her saw right through her game.

"Skin and blood has a hard time loving stone," Carmilla said, looking down at where the backs of their hands and fingers touched. "One will probably crack, the other will most definitely bleed."

Laura immediately latched onto Carmilla's hand, lacing fingers with fingers and letting her thumb brush patterns across the plain of pink.

"We've done fine so far," Laura said.

"So far," Carmilla echoed. "It might seem like we've got all sorts of time but the sun is already set out there if you look through the window. You only have so many sunsets left."

"Your afraid to watch me get old," Laura said.

"And denying you the same in return."

Laura was already a year older than Carmilla biologically when they met, now she was two. Nothing changed, and yet having to witness Laura's birthday for the first time, Carmilla woke a fear in herself that Laura wanted desperately to snuff out.

"What happens when you're graduating? When you're going to your first big professional party because you won some journalism award and we're ten years apart? Or 20? Or 30? Are you going to be toting your 18 year old girlfriend to your lifetime achievement award party?" Carmilla.

"Stop."

Laura felt her jaw muscles bounce and tighten as her teeth pressed together. The new tears that threatened to trickle down were some strange cocktail of despair and anger.

Carmilla, at the very least, looked guilty. Her face dropped to focus on the floor.

"I'm ruining your birthday," she said. "I'm sorry."

Laura sighed and shook her head. It wasn't that Carmilla didn't have points, in fact she had ridiculously valid points that Laura didn't even want to think about nor have any parts of. She was happy now, she got to kiss Carmilla and hold her hand and fall asleep next to her. She didn't bother to ask how long it would last because she found ways to make it feel like forever.

But forever ended when the sun came up.

And to Carmilla, Laura was dying in her arms, even at this very moment.

"There's an alternative to that, you know," Laura said quietly and turned red.

Carmilla's head snapped in her direction like a catapult flinging the deadliest gaze Laura had ever seen. She found herself frightened for a second or two of the raw, dark, fire coming out of Carmilla's eyes and she thought she might just burn up right there.

"Don't ask that of me," Carmilla said.

"I have to ask because you'll never offer."

"Damn right, I won't."

Carmilla was up again and stalking back to the window, which apparently was her new favorite hiding spot tonight. It was dark out now and the moonlight lit her black hair like the surface of a dark lake. A very grumpy, and now very angry, dark lake.

"Do you know what you're asking?" Carmilla said. "Do you have any clue? This isn't a game, this isn't some trashy romance novel."

Laura hated when Carmilla took the "I know better tone" and talked to her like she was 12, even if 20 years old could feel like less than 12 to her age.

"Did you know, every day when I walk down the street, I can hear your heartbeats?" Carmilla pointed to her hear. "It's part of the gig. I get to hear every single lub dub within a ten-foot radius. I hear the blood too, like a tiny little river in those extremely puncture happy tubes running all over your body."

Carmilla was stepping closer to her now, fangs visible, and the same darkness in her eyes as before, but very, very different. Who knew a body with no blood flow or breath could produce so much _heat_?

"Everything is telling me to just do it. That virus that brought me back turned my body into a machine with a single goal, all the muscles that don't get tired, the sharp teeth, the practically infrared eyes. Humans think they're the top of the food chain," she said.

She was inches from Laura now, who was refusing to move. She wouldn't be frightened by Carmilla's scare tactics. Even when she felt the tips of those very dangerous teeth graze the pulse point on her neck. It was horrifyingly scary and exhilarating in a way that made Laura blush even deeper. She wondered if Carmilla could sense that too, she probably could.

She felt her eyes close on their own and the second she gave in, the brush of fangs was gone and so was the closeness of Carmilla's body. Her eyelids, suddenly made of lead, opened again to see a fangless Carmilla looking smaller and sadder than ever back against the window, staring at her.

For once Laura thought she might actually be looking at Mircalla, whoever she was before she was murdered.

"You're too bright for that," Carmilla said quietly and Laura's embarrassment at being made quite hot under the collar is lost in her sudden fear that Carmilla might actually shed tears. "I've seen wars, and innovations, and births, and milestones, and regimes fall, and powers rise. And I swear to you, in 300 years, you're the only thing in this world that has ever shined."

Laura felt her mouth drop open on its own.

"Please don't ask me this."

She then pushed passed Laura in an effort to hide her face. Laura didn't see where she went however because she was frozen still in place with a gaping mouth and no words anywhere near good enough to respond with. She felt what must have been the fifteenth wave of tears that night and try as she might to blink them away, looking to the ceiling, they fell, real and true, this time.

Her own thoughts and reflections weren't even enough, she simply replayed the words over and over. Carmilla would rather her live her entire life, let that flame burn as bright as it could for everyone to see and turn to embers on its own, rather than keep it for herself.

That's when Laura realized something.

"You love me."

It wasn't like she wasn't already sure and thought to herself that she did in fact love her back. All the times she tried to deny in her head the things Carmilla did, that she knew in her heart were for her, despite her attempts at denying it. But this hit somewhere very softly and wove itself in stitch by stitch. Carmilla said so little because three centuries taught her that too many words were useless and already said by someone else. But actions or inactions for the ones she loved, belonged to her alone.

"I do."

Laura suddenly remembered how feet worked and turned, taking two steps over to kneel in front of her before taking Carmilla's face in her much warmer hands and kissed her. Really, _really_ kissed her. Warm and present and ever moving yet as solid as a rock. Flesh could love stone after all.

Laura pulled away and let the pads of her thumbs brush strokes on Carmilla's face.

"I love you, too."

Carmilla let out a small laugh that was little more than an exhale accented with a genuine smile. Her own hands burrowed into Laura's hair and she felt her head pulled forward into lips on her forehead.

"I know you don't want to hear this," Laura said, taking Carmilla's hands in her own. "But if I do a lot of thinking, I mean a lot of thinking, and go through all the vows of silence to contemplate it and I still ask for this. Can you respect that I'm a big girl making my own decisions and at least consider it?"

Carmilla leaned back and looked at her. After a moment, she nodded. Her eyes drifted back to the ring around Laura's neck. She looked a little less like she was witnessing a funeral.

"Still having second thoughts about it?"

"It looks better on you than it ever did on me," Carmilla said, sitting up. "It was actually a gift from the Freiherr of Lustenau, it was an attempt at a proposal. Hope he doesn't mind me regifting."

She winked at Laura when a knock came to the door and several pairs of feet. Laura jumped and Carmilla's best impression of Grumpy Cat began.

"Laura I hope you are having a wonderful birthday but our reservations are in exactly 13 minutes and I—"

"Perr, it's called tact. For all you know they're in the middle of—"

"Please don't finish that sentence."

The muffled voices began arguing with each other when Laura shrugged to Carmilla. The bickering only got louder when Kirsch joined in.

"Listen to them, the children of the night, what music they make," Carmilla mocked and Laura had to keep from bursting out laughing. Carmilla would take a stake to the chest before she let anyone hear her make a vampire joke and it was personal moments like this that made Laura want to simply lock the door and hide away with her for hours.

But she was also wouldn't mind spending a carefree night surrounded by her friends before some new hellhound or ancient monster came spouting out of a dungeon again.

Hand-in-hand with Carmilla, Laura went out laughing with her friends.


End file.
